A flat end to the day

Wed, 11 Jun Closing

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   Pre-Open   

   09:30 am   

   11:30 am   

   01:30 pm   

After trading in the negative territory during post noon trading session, the Indian equity markets failed to recover ground and ended the day on a weak note. While the BSE-Sensex today closed lower by 110 points, the NSE-Nifty closed lower by 30 points. Even the Smallcaps and Midcaps were out of favor today with both the BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap indices closing lower by 1% and 0.7% respectively. Barring stocks from Banking, IT and Healthcare space, all the sectoral indices closed in red. Realty stocks were the biggest losers today.

As regards global markets, Asian indices closed mixed today. The rupee was trading at Rs 59.3 to the dollar at the time of writing.

India's trade deficit widened during the month of May to US$ 11.2 bn from about US$ 10.0 bn in the previous month. This is despite the fact that exports witnessed the strongest ever growth in the last six months. For the month of May exports stood at US$ 28 bn while imports stood at US$ 39.3 bn. Trade deficit is the difference between exports and imports. Hence, rising exports should effectively reduce the deficit. But it has happened otherwise as imports did not fall by much. A rising trade deficit could be a cause of worry as it may pressurize the Rupee. And this may stoke fuel inflation. Hence, it is important that deficit figures do not widen and government comes out with appropriate policies that boost exports thereby increasing their competitiveness.

Automobile stocks ended the day on a mixed note. Hero Motocorp and TVS motors were among the leading gainers for the day, while Ashok Leyland and Mahindra scooters were among the leading losers. As per the financial daily, the car sales have witnessed positive growth for the month of May 2014. This is the first time in this year that car sales have witnessed positive growth. The growth reported for May 2014 is 3.08%. The earlier months had witnessed decline in automobile sales. Reportedly, the automakers are now looking forward to make new launches ahead of festive season. Further, this growth is largely on expectations of better growth of the economy as the new government has taken the charge. Majority of the car companies, including Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Honda Cars, have all notched up their best performance during May 2014. Maruti Suzuki posted growth of 12.3% YoY in the domestic sales for the month of May. While, the current data certainly indicates encouraging picture we should still wait and see what steps the government takes to encourage higher demand of automobiles.